If /dev/sda has a partition /dev/sda6 that is mounted read-only on /,
that does not mean that /dev/sda is read-only.
The partition table lives outside the filesystems.
But the kernel does not reread a partition table of a disk
that is busy, and having a partition mounted on root certainly
means being busy.
Of course a more fine-grained test is possible (where one
checks that no significant things have changed, e.g., that
/dev/sda6 is still the same partition at the same disk location),
but it is a bit tricky to make sure nothing has been forgotten -
and it puts a burden on future maintenance of the kernel,
so at present it is easiest to repartition a disk with the
root mounted elsewhere (a floppy, a ram disk, another disk),
or to reboot after repartitioning.
Andries
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